My name is Clara Green. I am a prospective artist growing up in the gorgeous and rainy state of Washington, and since I was 4 years old, I have wanted to illustrate children’s books. Children have been an extremely important part of my upbringing. I am the oldest of 8 children myself, so I grew up in the richness of a large, loud family. I’ve also worked and volunteered at many church camps where I supervise kids, so younger kids have made a huge impression on my life. By illustrating children’s books and creating beautiful stories that kids can access, I hope to in turn leave an impression on the next generation of kids. My brothers and sisters have been the inspiration for much of my art. I draw and paint children as they run outside, climb trees, blow out birthday cake candles or brush their teeth before bed. I want to continue drawing these familiar household scenes because they are relatable to any child from any background. Unlike many of my peers, I prefer traditional painting and drawing above modern digital art. I love the characteristic weightiness of an oil paintbrush against my hand and the scratch of charcoal on paper. When I was growing up, my parents very rarely gave me access to a digital screen and I am grateful for that. While I understand that digital art is convenient and essential for things such as animation and marketing, I still believe it is important to preserve the classic art tradition. The world of art cannot all be reduced to the flat screen. I hope to remind and encourage younger kids that they can themselves create beautiful pictures without being in front of their screens all day. I intend to pursue my artistic education by earning a bachelor’s degree in fine arts with a concentration in illustration. I hope to combine my preference for traditional artwork with my knowledge of children’s lives to create insightful illustrations. However, since my parents have seven other children to provide for besides me, they will not be paying for most of my college education and I will have to earn my own funds to afford my art degree. I would use the funds from this scholarship to help with art classes and supplies. I would be so blessed with the opportunity to pursue my training as an artist. The kids in my life, including my 7 siblings, have made my life richer with their laughter and humor, and I would love to enrich their lives by creating beautiful picture books. Thank you for considering my application.

When I was twelve years old, my mom brought me to a strange house in the nearby neighborhood. I remember gazing in quiet delight at the purple scalloped shingles on the roof, and at the gorgeous, rare tulips in the garden, but what especially arrested my attention was a huge sculpture of a wild cat lying on the front lawn. I knew then that this was the home of an artist, and not just any artist, but one with a courageously creative spirit. My mom led me inside and told me I that here I would be attending my new “art class”. I was even more impressed with the inside of the house; it had everything an artist could want, which is saying a lot, from reference books to high-quality supplies to complimentary snacks and tea. On that day I met Dianne Brudnicki, the founder of the Studio of Art and Innovation, and the person who inspired me to become an artist. Dianne was a brilliant source of information and inspiration for me. She taught me artistic thoughts and technical skills mostly by allowing me to teach myself. She guided me over the path rather than forcing me. She let me make mistakes and discoveries on my own and then showed me how to get “fresh eyes” and start anew. For example, when I made my first oil-on-canvas still-life, she let me play with the tones and colors and figure out what style of appearance I liked. She gave me as much freedom as I wanted but also as much help as I requested. Within minutes I discovered how difficult and frustrating it was to maintain the colors for a large representational piece, so later, during my second and third still-life paintings, Dianne taught me to organize my paint colors accessibly. One of Dianne’s best qualities was her indefinite patience. She treated each of her students as a unique individual and always had time to speak to us one on one about our diverse portfolios. The only general lectures she gave were hilarious stories from her childhood. She recognized the intricacy and relationships between diverse art forms by interweaving poetry, history and literature into her disciplines. Most importantly, her gentle but strong love of art convinced me to love art in turn. It was Dianne who shared her finest watercolor brushes with me just so I could delight in their flowing sensation. It was she who gave me the idea to write and illustrate a picture book. It was she who inspired me to keep a journal of creative thoughts throughout the past six years. And it was she who shared so many inspirational stories about how art can influence families, communities and even countries. I am extremely grateful to Dianne who taught me so much more than how to paint and who gave me “fresh eyes” to see the world.

My name is Clara Green. I am the proud older sister of seven younger siblings, and my childhood was made extremely rich by my loud, large family. Since I was 4 years old, I have wanted to delight other children by illustrating children’s books. Besides my many siblings, I have spent many hours working or volunteering at church camps for kids, so younger kids have made a great impression on my life. For this reason, I want to bring children joy by creating beautiful stories. My brothers and sisters have been the inspiration for much of the subject matter in my art. I have experience drawing and painting children as they run outside, climb trees, blow out birthday cake candles or brush their teeth before bed. When I become a professional illustrator, I want to continue drawing these familiar household scenes because they hold important memories for my generation. Unlike many of my peers, I prefer traditional painting and drawing to modern digital art methods because I thrive on the tactility of different art media. I love the solid, concrete weightiness of an oil paintbrush against my hand. I need to feel the textured scrape and scratch of charcoal on paper. These things are lost in the flat world of digital art. An illustrator of children's books should be competent at drawing realistically, but more importantly she should know how to incorporate the unique characteristics of a certain artistic medium into each story. For this reason, I believe an illustrating career would befit me well. To become a better artist, I intend to earn a bachelor’s degree in fine arts with a concentration in illustration. I hope to combine my preference for traditional artwork with my knowledge of children’s lives to create insightful illustrations. However, since my parents have seven other children to provide for besides me, they will not be paying for most of my college education and I will have to earn my own funds to afford college. I would use the funds from this scholarship to relieve that financial burden. This scholarship represents one more small but essential step toward reaching my goal. I would be so blessed with the opportunity to pursue my training as an artist and learn to illustrate picture books for children. The children in my life, including my many siblings, have made my life richer with their laughter and humor, and I would love to enrich the lives of the next generation of children by creating beautiful picture books. Thank you for considering my application.

I am a prospective artist growing up in the gorgeous albeit rainy state of Washington, and since I was 4 years old, I have wanted to illustrate children’s books. I am the proud older sister of seven rambunctious younger siblings, so my life has been filled with opportunities to explore and study children. I draw my siblings, I write about my siblings, I listen to their stories and I look at their drawings. My brothers and sisters have been the inspiration for much of the subject matter in my art. Therefore, I have experience drawing and painting children as they run outside, climb trees, blow out birthday cake candles or brush their teeth before bed. As an illustrator, I could explore these familiar, household scenes on an unfamiliar level, bringing joy to the next generation of children by giving them glimpses into another child's life. Unlike many of my peers, I prefer traditional painting and drawing to modern digital art methods because I thrive on the tactility of different art media. I love the solid, concrete weightiness of an oil paintbrush against my hand. I need to feel the textured scrape and scratch of charcoal on paper. These things are lost in the flat world of digital art. Through children’s picture books, I would be able to harness the tangible, earthy qualities of traditional art to create pictures that delight children and inspire them to create their own artwork in turn. Traditional art can never grow obsolete as long as our children are raised to appreciate it. But painting and drawing are not my only preferred media, for in recent years I discovered that I also love to write. I believe that art and stories are intimately connected, because art is itself a language and stories are themselves a form of art. Both fields require an artist who can sympathize with human emotions, experiences and desires, and discern how to effectively express those in either words or pictures. When this epiphanic moment struck me, I realized that my educational goal was two-fold: I hope to both write and illustrate my own picture books. Every artist is inspired by artists from the past, and I am no exception. I have been inspired by other children’s book authors who both wrote and illustrated many of their own picture books, including David Small, Brock Cole, Maurice Sendak, and Tomie dePaola. I love the work of these brilliant artists; they understand the harmonic connections and the essential differences between words and pictures. A picture book illustrated by its author is unique, because the pictures and the words harmonize with each other. I hope to achieve this level of harmony in my own artwork and stories. I would be so blessed with the opportunity to pursue my training as an artist and learn to write and illustrate picture books for children. The children in my life, including my seven siblings, have made my life richer with laughter and humor, and I would love to enrich the lives of the next generation of children by creating beautiful picture books.

Since I was 4 years old, I have wanted to illustrate children’s books. I am the proud older sister of seven rambunctious younger siblings, so my life has been filled with opportunities to explore and study children. I draw my siblings, I write about my siblings, I listen to their stories and I look at their drawings. My brothers and sisters have been the inspiration for much of the subject matter in my art. Therefore, I have experience drawing and painting children as they run outside, climb trees, blow out birthday cake candles or brush their teeth before bed. As an illustrator, I could explore these familiar, household scenes on an unfamiliar level, bringing joy to the next generation of children by capturing glimpses into another child's life. Unlike many of my peers, I prefer traditional painting and drawing to modern digital art methods because I thrive on the tactility of different art media. I love the solid, concrete weightiness of an oil paintbrush against my hand. I need to feel the textured scrape and scratch of charcoal on paper. These things are lost in the flat world of digital art. As an illustrator of children’s picture books, I would be able to harness the tangible, earthy qualities of traditional art to create pictures that delight children and inspire them to create their own artwork in turn. But painting and drawing are not my only preferred media, for in recent years I discovered that I also love to write. I believe that art and stories are intimately connected, because art is itself a language and stories are themselves a form of art. Both fields require an artist who can sympathize with human emotions, experiences and desires, and discern how to effectively express those in either words or pictures. When this epiphanic moment struck me, I realized that my career goal was two-fold: I hope to both write and illustrate my own picture books. Every artist is inspired by artists from the past, and I am no exception. I have been inspired by other children’s book authors who both wrote and illustrated many of their own picture books, including David Small, Brock Cole, Maurice Sendak, and Tomie dePaola. I love the work of these brilliant artists; they understand the harmonic connections and the essential differences between words and pictures. A picture book illustrated by its author is unique, because the pictures and the words harmonize with each other. I hope to achieve this level of harmony in my own artwork and stories. I would be so blessed with the opportunity to pursue my training as an artist and learn to illustrate picture books for children. The children in my life, including my many siblings, have made my life rich with laughter and humor, and I would love to enrich the lives of the next generation of children by creating beautiful picture books.

I am a prospective artist growing up in the gorgeous, albeit rainy, state of Washington, and since I was 4 years old, I have wanted to illustrate children’s books. I am the proud older sister of seven rambunctious younger siblings, so my life has been filled with opportunities to explore and study children. I draw my siblings, I write about my siblings, I listen to their stories and I look at their drawings. My brothers and sisters have been the inspiration for much of the subject matter in my art. Therefore, I have experience drawing and painting children as they run outside, climb trees, blow out birthday cake candles or brush their teeth before bed. As an illustrator, I could explore these familiar, household scenes on an unfamiliar level, bringing joy to the next generation of children by capturing glimpses into another child's life. In order to achieve my career goal, I must first complete a bachelor’s degree in fine art. I intend to pursue my artistic education at Biola University, which is a private, Christian university in southern California. Biola’s art program ensures each art student receives a strong foundation of traditional drawing and painting skills before attempting contemporary or digital methods, and for this reason I believe their school would be an excellent fit for my purposes. As I have sought this artistic education and career, one of my concerns has been the natural fear that I will struggle to find an adequate job. After all, the phrase “starving artist” was coined for a reason. Therefore, I was pleased to discover that Biola’s art program requires all art majoring students to complete 135 internship hours of specifically art-related work before graduation. This internship experience would prepare me with the knowledge and resources necessary to find a well-paying job. I would be so blessed with the opportunity to pursue my training as an artist and learn to illustrate picture books for children. The children in my life, including my many siblings, have made my life rich with their laughter and humor, and I would love to enrich the lives of the next generation of children by creating beautiful picture books.

All my life, I have loved writing. When I was seven years old, I tried my young hand at writing a hundred-page story book. Although the book was full of misspellings and had no plot, I had enjoyed every second of the writing process. Since then, I have never ceased to write. I have created about a hundred short poems, I have crafted both didactic and narrative essays, and of course I have continued to write stories. However, through my amateur writing experience, I have seen that words are not easy tools to use, and that they are especially difficult to use when the author thinks it his job to persistently control and coerce them. One of the most intriguing aspects of writing is that words have a quiet but brilliant mind of their own. Often when I least restrict my words, I find the freeing bliss of creating a more realistic and beautiful thing than I ever could have made before when I was too distracted by nitpicking. This is my favorite part about writing, because it means that when I write I am not doing something to my words, but rather I am partaking in an adventure alongside my words. Instead of the words being passive material that I can conquer and form according to my desire, it is as though the words and I are friends on equal terms. We, my words and I, work in harmony. I hope to continue my education in college in order to continue my love of writing. In college, I would be challenged with new ideas from professors and friends. I would be assigned to read different kinds of books and be exposed to philosophies, religions, ideologies and facts that are strange to me because they are unknown. And all these new experiences would greatly stretch and strengthen my writing skills by showing me more truths about the world in which I live. I believe the new things I will learn in college will make me a more well-rounded person and so give me wisdom and discretion in regards to my writing. Learning more about the world will broaden my horizons and consequently broaden my writing potential. Additionally, I know that words in today’s culture are slippery and are often misused or used unwisely by people who misunderstand them. I do not expect a college education to teach me to master words, because words cannot be mastered. But I do trust that a good college education can equip me with the resources to wield my words wisely, not seeking to control and master them, but learning to humbly work alongside them. The funds from this scholarship would allow me to be mentored by brilliant professors who share my love and desire for the well-written word.

My favorite athlete on Team USA is Torri Huske, who is a competitive swimmer and the current reigning Olympic champion in the women’s 100-meter butterfly. Torri Huske won the gold medal in the 100 fly just a few months ago at the Paris Olympics. She beat a field of the best athletes in the event, including the Tokyo gold-medalist Maggie Macneil, and the recently acclaimed world record holder, Gretchen Walsh. Few fans had anticipated Huske claiming gold because Gretchen Walsh, by breaking the world record in the event just a few weeks prior, had become the new favorite. But Huske was not intimidated by the resumes of the other swimmers; despite the odds she swam her hardest when it mattered most and got to the wall first. But that shining gold medal swim was not the start of Huske’s story. Her victory at the Paris Olympics had been preceded by a crushing disappointment at the previous Tokyo Olympic games back in 2021. Huske, 18 years of age at the time, swam the 100-meter fly in Tokyo and finished in fourth place by an agonizing hundredth of a second. She had missed the podium and the coveted Olympic medals by the smallest amount of time measured in the sport of swimming. It should have been a heart-breaking experience, but Huske was unwilling to let it break her completely. She returned to training and refused to let her disappointing fourth place finish slow her down. Instead, she used the experience of her first Olympic games as motivation to grow faster and stronger. She trained diligently for the next years, improving her strength, her butterfly turn, and her back-end speed to prepare her mind and body for her second Olympics. And when the moment arrived, Huske remained focused and snatched her opportunity to win the race. How has Torri Huske’s legacy inspired me? Besides simply being a fantastic swimmer, Huske demonstrated a level of resiliency that is truly worth emulating. She persevered by training for her second Olympic games after the disappointment in 2021, and rather than sitting back and resting on her laurels she continued to swim better and better. Her determination in the sport reminds me that success in swimming, as in life, is rarely linear. More often than not, we find our fortunes sink to their lowest depths and we must have faith that they will rise again. Torri Huske had faith in her own hard work and believed that she could win, no matter what the past held. And her faith was rewarded majestically. Torri Huske’s inspiring story is the testimony of a resilient, perseverant athlete who rose from hitting fourth place by a hundredth of a second to winning an Olympic gold medal.

What would success look like in my life? I have to ask myself this question often because, as a human being, I am not a mere animal passively performing on instincts. Instead, I am made in God’s image, and that means I am gifted with dignity, creativity, and reasoning, for I am able to use my hands and mind to create new things out of the world God has already made. When God created man and woman in His image, He declared that mankind should have dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:26-28). Therefore, success in my life as a human being inevitably includes a proper understanding and execution of this dominion by creating. What does it actually mean to create something? How can I find success in that calling? The image of God in each of us means that we are little creators and authors under Him. When I asked myself what I wanted to create in order to find success, I realized that I had already been creating it for years. All my life, I have been fascinated by words. When I was seven years old, I tried my young hand at writing a hundred-page story book. Although the book was full of misspellings and had no plot, I had enjoyed every second of the writing process. Since then, I have never ceased to write. I have created about a hundred short poems, I have crafted both didactic and narrative essays, and of course I have continued to write stories. Thus, I believe that success in my life would be to attain a mastery and a familiarity with words. By studying words attentively and learning to use them properly, I would be exercising dominion over the earth and discipline over myself. I trust that an education from a Christian, liberal arts college can equip me with the resources to wield my words wisely. The funds from this scholarship would allow me to be mentored by brilliant professors who love and understand words. But English is not the sole source of excellence and beauty in words; I am also fascinated by words in other languages. Words are like ships of transportation through which two separate people can receive a common idea, but ships of foreign and ancient languages, while still beautiful, are often incomprehensible. For example, I have studied Latin for 5 years and I still am unable to comfortably read Virgil’s Aeneid. I commenced the process of teaching myself Italian and Hebrew nearly two years ago, and I still cannot speak either language. Such fragmented study of foreign languages is typical today in American high schools, since most students do not truly desire to speak a foreign language but are simply going through the motions in order to graduate. But this does not satisfy me because it does not demonstrate success in the language. Success in a language is so much more than the ability to rattle off vocabulary and grammar points. I do not want to learn a foreign language just to pass a test and check off the boxes on my general education requirements. I seek a fluency and affinity with languages. I want to speak easily to friends and strangers in a language that they love and that we both can understand. I want to curl up on the couch on a winter’s afternoon and read The Aeneid without the aid of translators. I want to communicate the message of the gospel to people in their own language. A college education would allow me to study these foreign languages until I reach the level of fluency I desire. I hope to study under professors who teach me to think and speak in the foreign languages, for my goal is not customary recitation of verb conjugation charts but rather simple, brutal and beautiful fluency. The funds from this scholarship would bring me another small but necessary step closer to my goal. In conclusion, I believe that success in my life will be to write my own stories and to understand and enjoy words of various languages. The tongue and the pen are powerful gifts from God. They can make eloquent words like gems, and they can waste words like dead leaves. For this reason, I want to attend a college with rigorous writing and reading requirements that would teach me the discipline of speech and writing. This scholarship would prepare me to pursue the education I desire, helping me to further explore the beauty and the power of words.